France Descends into Authoritarianism Following Protests
France Descends into Authoritarianism Following Protests
By Glenn Greenwald / Rumble Following the recent protests against police in France, the French government has taken steps to implement increasingly repressive measures in the forms of mass surveillance and the rhetoric endorsement of online censorship.
Damn, if only they had stopped at 428 requests
No, it's 429 too many. There need to have been 429 fewer requests
Ah of course, you're right
Yikes
Same old West.
What do you expect when "protests" involve widespread destruction of private property, looting, fires, and vandalism?
Well a proper response from the government? Not something that antagonize the population, maybe something more human than using ILLEGAL weapons against your people ? Proprety destruction and looting is what you get when you push your people to the brink.
Riots are the voices of the unheard. The French govt has a long and proud tradition of violently oppressing protests. Things in France have been contentious all year over a variety of issues. What exactly are the French people supposed to do? A letter writing campaign to stop having their rights stripped away? Sit quietly outside of Parliament and ask nicely to stop being oppressed? Politely ask that the pigs only crush their neck a little? If you abhor disruptive and violent political action done by the people, surely you've found the non-violent alternative that works better. What is it?
Riots are the voices of the unheard.
Protests can be.
Riots are criminal attacks against innocent businesses and residents, which contribute nothing to any cause, and only results in aggressive reactions from police and governments.
The French govt has a long and proud tradition of violently oppressing protests.
This is truly unfortunate, and I do sympathize with protesters.
What exactly are the French people supposed to do?
Not hurting innocent people and local businesses would be a good start. There cannot be an effective protest without the support of the community. If you're burning down the community, then you've only made more enemies.
It may be helpful to learn (based on studies) what methods of protests work and why.
If a protest can't be effective, then it's a waste of time.
Riots like these are what you get when you prevent any other forms of protests: banning protests (illegal but by the time you get through court to get the ban lifted it is too late), making unions and strikes irrelevant by never ever yielding, preventing votes in the National Assembly using pressures on MP and all that the means that our constitution allows to bypass parliament, even though there is no clear majority for whatever you are doing, forcefully removing peaceful protestors, etc There are reasons why unions was good for everyone, elite class included, they allow peaceful resolution of conflict. If you remove all peaceful avenue, there will be people going into the not peaceful avenue.
I get it, the people of France are in a bad position, and there is a long history of protests and pushback from the government.
But there is no benefit to adding violence, unless the goal is to hurt the communities you are protesting for. This particular protest literally had no peaceful beginning, it started in violence and only got worse.
What's the end game with such a strategy?
I dunno if you know literally anything about the French, but Rioting is a long-standing part of their political culture over there. I'd argue it's a good thing.
If government addressed the peoples concerns at the word stage, things would never get to the firebomb stage.
Violence, Destruction, Etc are a direct result of government not addressing grievances satisfactorily.
So it's A-OK for the billionaire class to set our world & society on fire, but when people get upset about that & are then told "too bad, shut the fuck up", we're just supposed to take it?
How's that boot taste?
So it’s A-OK for the billionaire class to set our world & society on fire
Not at all. Is this riot targeting billionaires, or did I miss something?
I'm reading about small, mom-and-pop shops being destroyed, community grocery stores being burned down, a firefighter being killed, and other things that simply aren't helping the people.
If anything, it's creating more of a separation between the wealthy and the poor, so I can't see why these riots would have anything to do with protesting against billionaires.
I’ve spent some time just walking around looking at what’s happening during the protests in a large French city, and those didn’t really feel violent or overly destructive, more like a show of strength and trying to make the overwhelming public stance heard.
The only establishments that I saw had their windows broken were either large international chain stores or some municipal buildings, small cafes or various boulangeries were intact. There were burning trashcans and other stuff, but never too close to a building or something that might catch fire, everything was moved towards the center of the streets. It worked to disrupt car traffic and give the city a protest vibe, but it didn’t feel like the reason was pure destruction. You could’ve even come up to both masked protesters and cops and just have a chat in most cases. I think it was more violent in Paris, but I’d guess a lot of it had similar vibes still.
The thing is, it’s not like it started with this, there were peaceful protests and strikes at first. But when you ignore your population long enough, they see that peaceful means aren’t working and escalate. It could’ve been prevented if there was a reasonable governmental response.
Bro the government needs to capitulate. They aren't supposed to do things that their citizens don't like. If there's destruction and shit, it's the governments fault.
Just going along with it is why Russia is the way it is today.
The killings must continue until morale approves!